A Study on the Preference of Students towards Digital Reading Materials with Reference to Dindigul District

Innovation has become an irreplaceable marvel in contemporary time which has its effect on all social statuses and training isn’t an exemption to this. The educated understudies of today have effortlessly received the electronic course books as a substitution of printed reading material attributable to its usability, cost viability, and availability. Fluctuated sees on the understudies’ inclination of the predefined arrangement of reading material have laid the stage for more formal and centered exploration interests these days universally. Thusly, an exploration to separate the focal points and impediments of both the organizations and the reasons that are essential to decide on the one over the other at a provincial level is a lot of the need of great importance. The investigation planned to discover the premium and inclination that won in the brains of students of different collages in Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu regarding the embracing of electronic course readings over the printed course books as this sort of study has been completed a lot of restricted in this locale. The examination embraced a quantitative exploration plan and the poll as an examination instrument to gather the information. The outcome attests that a greater part of the understudies knows about both the configurations of reading material and are more open to utilizing electronic course books and have communicated their readiness to move from printed course readings to electronic course readings. By the by, the discoveries clarify that the understudies choose electronic course readings relying on the nature and difficulty of the subject.


Introduction
In the beginning the advanced innovation teaching has assumed a part in making the instructing techniques to be more successful by giving general media helps, for example, sound tracks, video clippings, live streaming and so forth. As the days progress, it has begun its intrusion into the course reading materials too as the students of today are thought of. Educators have been, utilizing more media in their instructions and fusing computerized materials, for example, scholastic games and intelligent sites into exercise plans. Be that as it may, in course of time, it has advanced to be the pioneer to transform from the printed reading material to electronic reading material which in the ongoing past has additionally evolved to be intuitive electronic course books. E-books have gotten a well known vehicle for content conveyance and are as a rule generally acknowledged as an option in contrast to customary paperbased books.

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International Journal of Management s h a n l a x # S I N C E 1 9 9 0 Consequently, a careful examination to discover the inclination of the students concerning the prescribed print text book readings frames the foundation of this investigation. Dindigul area is limited by Erode, Coimbatore, Karur and Trichy locale on the North, by Sivaganga and Trichy District on the East, by Madurai region on the South and by Theni and Coimbatore Districts and Kerala State on the West. It is spread over on region of 6266.64 Sq. Km. This locale has the credit of having two Universities, viz, Mother Theresa University for Women at Kodaikanal and Gandhigram Rural Deemed University at Gandhigram. Additionally various Engineering Colleges, Arts and Science Colleges, Polytechnics, ITIs are accessible all through the region. Hence this examination is generally an endeavor to understand the need to change the method of reading course material for improving the learning experience of the students of various colleges in Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu.

Literature Review
Classroom is a room in an institution where a gathering of students are educated. The study hall is an operational place in colleges which holds students together and offers them the chance of accomplishing the purpose of education (Hill and Hill, 1990). Change or modification is essential to improvement and is exceptionally normal in each circle of life to be created. Similarly with respect to teaching in classes also needs to modify by ignoring several old techniques for coping with the present situation (Debasish & Jantu, 2019). From the early stage, Internet is currently become a piece of social and individual existence of person. Web is a worldwide organization of PCs which are associated with everyone by wire or remotely (Ravikanth, 2019). Most of the existing literatures unanimously agree about the importance of morale in influencing work performance (Sabarirajan, 2016). Enormous and wide utility of web has gone to be a position of solace for young people, an approach to soothe their downturn, and methods for disposing of awful mindset and stress or to play and trade clever messages and jokes (Lin and Tsai, 2001).
ICT has risen as another apparatus in the field of instructing and discovering that can make conceivable many winning unimaginable realities in classroom (Drossel et al, 2017). This is the structure that causes students to get pulled in and persuaded towards learning. With the advances in data and correspondence advances, instructive exercises are presently more subject to the web and online applications. These new advancements have brought about the development of another idea, e-learning. E-learning alludes to "innovation based learning in which learning materials are conveyed electronically to far off students by means of a computer network" (Zhang et al, 2004). A few applications are utilized to help e-learning exercises, for example, course, learning and management frameworks, bookkeeping frameworks, content creation instruments and course websites (Paulsen, 2003). A Learning Management System (LMS) is one of the generally utilized applications in advanced education foundations to help course exercises in the computerized condition. The powerful execution of this apparatus is critical to improve the nature of learning, admittance to instruction and preparing, give cost-viability and decrease the expense of training.
Cybernation has become a basic wonder of the contemporary period which has its effect on each field of development (Mohanad and Janaki, 2020). Advanced innovation is utilized for correspondence, socialization, amusement and learning data. It has its huge task to carry out in the territory of instruction also (Weisburg, 2011). (Karabatzaki, 2018) affirmed that utilization of innovation has advanced students commitment significantly. Since the time the start of antiquated development, training has been changing its structure attributable to the cultural movements. Subsequently, in the present period, instruction will undoubtedly inject innovation to make the encouraging intriguing and the learning experience only useful as well as captivating and sensational by utilizing changed computerized devices implied for training and the e contents have become an indivisible aspect of the instructive framework (Dayakar, 2018). People are currently used to delivering, composing, putting away and recovering reports electronically on a wide scope of electronic gadgets (Makwanya and Oni, 2019). In the assessment of Simon and Simon and Garcia (2016), the technically knowledgeable mindset of the contemporary students has invited the infringement of creative innovations into the educating and learning measure. Regardless of the Shanlax International Journal of Management s h a n l a x # S I N C E 1 9 9 0 ages, the primary motivation behind training has consistently been to assist students with turning out to be independent learners, ready to ask, comprehend, and break down thoughts and utilize their insight to take care of issues (Dobler, 2015).
In the view of Lokar (2015), electronic course materials could be sensibly less expensive than printed course materials and as per Chulkov and Van Alstine (2013), the inclination for the reading material depends on "cost, simplicity of procurement, capacity to keep the book, and match to their learning style." Nevertheless, Lee et al (2013) noticed that the practice of going advanced digital reading incures cost additionally. The expense contains acquisition of keen gadgets, establishment of programming, upkeep of equipment, network framework, extra frill, web utilization, operational costs, redesign and substitution costs, refreshing of against infection, and expert preparing. In any case, accessibility of a wide scope of electronic gadgets at sensible costs make it conceivable and moderate for individuals to possess the keen gadgets as per Wiese and Du Plessis (2014). Asunka (2013) believed that during the 1970s the electronic reading material are simply digitalized print books with no additional specialized highlights or intuitive instruments which was additionally affirmed by Choppin et al (2014). The data and news is currently accessible to numerous people effortlessly (Venkateswaran et al, 2019). Consequently, these were not assuming a significant part in improving the learning experience of learners or helping the instructors in upgrading the adequacy of the enhanced instructional methods. Rather than encouraging the instructing experience to be more agreeable, electronic course materials gave a trouble to educators inferable from the absence of preparing, contrariness among assets and gadgets, helpless receptivity, buffering because of low speed internet connection, eye strain, posture issues, and user obstruction -hampering the smooth running of classes with electronic reading materials.
In 2010, this variant was additionally evolved with a couple of more included highlights the brilliant gadgets, for example, "essential note taking, highlighting options, and search capacities," as affirmed by Weisberg (2011). However, Mizrachi et al. (2018) discovered that the learners wanted to print out for highlighting the text instead of utilizing E-contents. Muir and Hawes (2013) found that the learners need updated interface to improve the learning experience and as per Baker and Stone (2015), the learners access electronic course materials to see, "content on a web page, a PDF content, or on an electronic reading gadget." Almost all the electronic course material arrive in a PDF design as it is viewed as more easy to use and almost all PCs and other advanced processing gadgets, for example, PDAs and tablets have programming that will deliver PDF documents without reducing quality of the original content (Feldstein et al., 2012). Further, Beetham and Sharepe (2013) pinpointed that, "It is questionable that there is no requirement for a hypothesis of innovation improved learning. Innovation can assume a significant function in the accomplishment of learning results; however it appears to be pointless to clarify this improvement with an exceptional record of learning. Or maybe, the test is to depict how the innovation permits basic cycle normal to all figuring out how to work viably." Hence, it gets inescapable to discover from the different sources the adequacy of utilization of electronic reading material and whether the successful utilize is variable to the sort of scholastic order picked. The findings of the examination would lay an extension for the total appropriation of electronic course materials by the colleges or keeping up the current pattern of blend of printed and electronic course books.

Research Methodology
In the study, quantitative assessments were used to test the responses collected from students. Relevant to the objective of the study, the structured questionnaire was prepared based on the earlier researches referred and modified according to the requirement of the current study. Data collected from respondents of various colleges in Dindigul district through online mode. The questionnaire utilized to enumerate the demographic data such as, age, sex, level of study and level of awareness in terms of print books and e-books. Out of 300 responses received 240 responses were selected based on completeness. Hence the sample size turned to be 240 in which Male students 130, Female Students 110, out of which the significant 64.6% are in the age group of Below 20 and 29.2% are in the age group 21-25 years. Only 2.1% are from above 30 years.

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Student's Preference towards Printed Text Books
In the study 33.5% of the respondents reported that they had sometimes used the printed textbooks, 28.3% mentioned that they had been using printed textbooks frequently, 22.7% mentioned that they used the printed textbooks only during the regular classes and 15.5% mentioned that had never used the printed textbooks at all. The responses make it very clear that the printed textbooks are losing its significance amidst the college students as the college students of these days have a tendency to resort to the notes taken in the classes, abstracts from the current research studies and various on-line resources for the information acquisition. The numbers of college students utilizing printed textbooks frequently and only during regular classes are gradually going down. When explored further, the respondents listed the following as the inconveniences of printed textbooks: The responses make it very clear that majority of the students preferred printed textbook for not making eye strain while reading and easiness in Lending and borrowing of books. Similarly most of them face inconvenience in carrying books because of its weight and the cost of text books also higher. In the study 42.8% of the respondents mentioned that they had sometimes used the electronic textbooks, 31.2% mentioned that they had been using electronic textbooks regularly, 22.7% mentioned that they used the electronic textbooks only during the classes and 3.3% mentioned that had never used the electronic Shanlax International Journal of Management s h a n l a x # S I N C E 1 9 9 0 textbooks at all. The responses make it very clear that the electronic textbooks are gaining its momentum amidst the students which is in alignment with the findings of Hendricks and Leonard & Snyman because the students of today find it easier to access the online materials owing to the smart devices and high-speed internet that are available to them at a reasonable price.

Discussions
The respondents suggested that electronic textbooks are the best for academic disciplines like social sciences, management studies and languages in the order of preference. This may be because of highly theoretical nature of the courses pertaining to these educational disciplines. This requires an attention that the developers of digital textbooks and other online materials have to pay more attention in designing the digital textbooks pertaining to science area in order to facilitate students. In addition, the participants were aware of the necessity of the smart devices and varied formats of electronic textbooks. Further, they possessed the advanced knowledge of the latest interactive tools available on electronic textbooks and the thorough awareness of the need for high speed internet for the knowledge transmission through electronic textbooks. Since the students had the experience of handling both the formats of textbooks, the findings of this study become more authentic. In addition, the respondents possessed the knowledge to compare the effective knowledge transfer of varied subjects too.

Conclusion
This study identified the reasons behind the students' preference of printed or electronic versions of textbooks only taking into consideration the students of various colleges in Dindigul district through online mode. Hence, it lays the scope to extend the study for the entire student population of the whole country or the region for a more concrete result. Longitudinal research should be initiated in future to decide on the complete adoption of electronic textbooks in the higher educational institutes. Comparing the trend with other countries can also facilitate more interpretations in this regard. Despite the repeated researches in various parts of the globe, the question of making printed or traditional textbooks completely dispensable is still unanswered. However, the changing trend of modernization and evolution of technology on a dayto-day basis may lead to complete switch over from printed textbooks to electronic textbooks.